History of Ibizaby Emily Kaufman The Spanish Civil War In The PitiusesPart Eight

Hello and welcome to the history page. After hearing the moving personal
testimony of Rafael Sainz last week, we shall resume our narrative where
we left off, with the splintered and rather ineffectual five-week period
of Republican rule. Readers will recall from our instalment two weeks
ago that the combined militias of Bayo and Uribarry initiated their
occupation with a rampage of the island’s rural churches and the
targeted killings of twenty-one local clergymen. Given the traditional
Ibicenco reverence towards all things religious, it was only natural
that these deeds did not generate a high degree of solidarity between
the islanders and their new warlords. Consequently, the latter’s
attempts at restructuring local economy and political life met with
apathy at best and a stony wall of resistance in the majority of cases.

Also
in operation in these early days of Republican occupation was a bitter
power struggle between Bayo and Uribarry as to which of the two men
would assume maximum leadership in the aftermath of invasion. Bayo
condemned the undisciplined methods and indiscriminate sackings that
characterized Uribarry’s motley recruits and made it clear that he would
not allow such practices to continue. Unwilling to play second fiddle to
Bayo’s military superiority, Uribarry and his troops withdrew from Ibiza
on 10th August to return to their home turf of Valencia.

This
inauspicious beginning to Republican rule quickly degenerated into a
near total breakdown of Ibicenco society and Bayo’s eventual departure
from the island as well. The fatal blow to his tenuous supremacy in the
Mediterranean theatre of war occurred on 3rd September when
his efforts to incorporate Majorca into the Republican domain ended in
failure. As the Ibicenco commentator, Artur Parron, writes in his candid
chronicle of the Civil War in the Pitiuses, “… the authority of [the
anti-fascist] Committee in Ibiza was seriously undermined by Bayo’s
defeat on the larger island; it became incapable of enforcing the
economic and labour measures it had instituted, and, above all, of
maintaining public order. … The disorganization and indiscipline of the
troops fuelled the precariousness of public order and led to
indiscriminate repression.” Interestingly, Parron goes on to qualify
that, “One must not think that these abuses were committed only by
the troops that disembarked on 8th August. The new situation
proved fertile ground for the waging of personal reprisals on questions
of debts and property rights among the very islanders themselves.”
The brutal honesty of Parron’s observations can only leave one aghast at
the hidden seeds of ruination that lie buried within the deepest layers
of any society and which often germinate in times of war.

Anarchy Arrives

The
events following Bayo’s withdrawal are as convoluted and imbrued as one
would expect from a war-torn territory where collective hysteria had
become the driving force behind human behaviour. Following Bayo’s
departure on the 3rd - 4th September and the
ensuing dissolution of the anti-fascist Committee, the lawless islands
were again reoccupied on 9th - 10th September by a
large militia of anarchists under the leadership of Juan Yagüe. The
vacuum of power in Ibiza allowed Yagüe and his 500-strong contingent to
seize control of the island’s infrastructure without the slightest hint
of opposition. One of their first moves was the take-over of the local
newspaper, the Diario de Ibiza, which they renamed Worker
Solidarity, intending to use it as a propaganda tool for their
labour union, CNT. Less than 24 hours later, however, the plot twists
yet again, forcing the anarchists to withdraw as suddenly as they had
arrived, but not without first inflicting a savage blow to Pitiusan
society…

Meanwhile in Majorca, the newly dominant Nationals began a full-scale
campaign to bring the Pitiuses back into the fold and began with a light
bombing of Vila on 12th September. Although this preliminary
action did not cause any casualties, it did serve to spread panic among
an already terrified population. On the following noon, 13th
September, three Italian aircraft delivered a second round of more
intensive bombing, this time killing an estimated forty victims and
causing severe material damages. This action in Ibiza was but a
foretaste of the Italian military prepotency which, operating from a
solid base in the Mediterranean, would later be rained on Barcelona and
the eastern Spanish seaboard. Well-known is the fact that Mussolini’s
generous aid to Franco constitutes one of the decisive factors in the
latter’s victory.

September Massacre

Returning to Ibiza: with the Republican forces now completely
disintegrated, isolated pockets of anarchist militias visited their
wrath on the prison in Dalt Vila, machine-gunning the entire body of
political captives housed therein. Of roughly one hundred inmates -
including priests, military men, rightwing political leaders, the
manufacturer Marí Mayans and the banker Abel Matutes i Torres -
ninety-three were killed. That night numerous families escaped to
Valencia, Algeria and Majorca, informing the National leaders in the
Balearic capital of the utter social decomposition in the Pitiuses. It
was not until 18th September, however - five days later -
that the Italian destroyer, Malocello, made a reconnaissance tour
to Ibiza to assess the situation, returning the same day to Palma. Upon
receiving the report that the island was indeed a political no-man’s
land, several well-organized companies of Falangists and assorted
National factions arrived in the Pitiuses on 20th September,
occupying both Ibiza and Formentera and initiating a bloody
counter-repression that would long outlast the period of wartime proper.

Closing

On
that depressing note we will end our sad chronicle for this week. Most
of us, I am willing to wager, haven’t the heart to listen to anymore of
the madness that took place during the tragic summer of 1936. For those
who can pluck up their courage, we will be back next week to discuss the
period of National occupation and the important role of the Falangists
in the wartime military state. Until then.